Gratia Plena
by Celesma
Summary: "Dean would be infuriated to know that he needs a guardian angel, but that's because he needs protecting from himself." A mortal and an angel wrestle through the night. Destiel, hurt!Dean, mentions of trueform!Cas. Rated for some hard themes and sexual content.


A/N: Set during S05. I apologize if this is unbelievably syrupy.

* * *

**Gratia Plena  
**_  
(full of grace)_

Several millenniums ago, the concept of angels as guardians had passed out of favor among those who ruled the principalities in Heaven. Zachariah scoffed at the idea of wasting time to employ such a personal touch when he had a tight ship to run, unless he needed to bribe his slaves to put in extra work; and Uriel (when he was alive) had seen humans as little more than torpidly rotting sacks of meat, worthy of nothing more than his scorn. But Castiel – something of an upstart compared to these two – still considered himself the guardian of the Winchesters. These days, however, he was starting to wonder if the idea was jettisoned not due to the Host's arrogance or inability to be bothered, but simply because it was impossible for any one angel to perfectly protect a human in all aspects of daily life.

It was also likely that he was just a terrible angel.

Castiel often has these thoughts whenever the Winchesters find themselves barely on the winning side of a life-or-death conflict (as seems to be the case every week now), but he especially considers himself a failure when he thinks about Dean. The older Winchester would be infuriated to know that he needs a guardian angel – he already considers himself a guardian, in more ways than one – but that's because, more than anything else, he needs protecting from himself. The sadness that he carries around like a beast of burden is one that will eventually crush him underfoot, if left unchecked.

But sadness like Dean's is almost impossible to eradicate. Its selfless nature is like an aggressive cancer, resisting all attempts at neutralization. After all, his sadness has nothing in common with the kind of melancholy Castiel sees in other human beings – the kind of vapid, injured attitude that ultimately places one's own self at the center of the universe. Contrary to their narcissism, Dean seems to live only to protect others: such as the complete strangers who find themselves haunted or stalked by supernatural forces (who often don't thank him), his earnestly good-hearted little brother (who is grateful and loves him but has put him through more hell than he deserves), and sometimes even Castiel himself (how ironic). That kind of pointless self-sacrifice incenses the angel, as does his secretiveness.

Dean is strong and rarely shows his pain, not realizing yet that he doesn't have to be. As things currently stand, the only indication that he might be suffering includes taking excessive doses of aspirin and sometimes staring aimlessly at nothing, a sort of stupid apathy turning down the corners of his face. During the day he fights the encroaching darkness in his heart, pushing back the shadows with tearless eyes; but in the dark of bed, there are no secrets.

Almost every night he cries, softly, sins of the past haunting him in his sleep. Unbeknownst to him, Castiel stands by his bedside with his fingers on his temple, keeping the nightmares at bay long enough for him to find at least a few hours' rest, feeling helpless anger swell in his breast.

The seventh consecutive night is the worst. The moment Castiel touches his face, he can _see_ his dreams. When he closes and opens his eyes he is inside the ruined remains of a building, filled with the constant echoes of screams – a screaming that Dean must hear even to this day – and a suffocating heat that simultaneously conveys subarctic temperatures. Castiel's blood boils and freezes in his veins, and he retreats deeper into a coat that offers no warmth, as the walls around him seem to run more to ruin with each passing second.

He walks down endless corridors, bearing the agony as best he can, looking for Dean.

He finds him in a poorly lit chamber, standing by a contraption that bears a strong resemblance to the rack Alastair was tortured on, flickering florescent bulbs throwing a pale circle of light on his slumped shoulders.

"Dean," Castiel says.

Dean doesn't turn around.

"Why do you do this to yourself?"

"You say it like I have a choice." Dean's voice is empty, incurious. He doesn't seem surprised that Castiel is here, but maybe that's because it's his dream. "It's a part of me now, Cas. Might as well call me _Dean Winchester, Hellboy_. Interests include hard rock, classic cars, and torturing people." He spits each word out with increasingly barbed disgust.

Castiel finds it hard to mask his frustration.

"How can you still believe that? You heard the prophecy, Dean. You know why Michael wants you. You are the Righteous Man."

Dean laughs humorlessly.

"Yeah, except I'm a righteous man who went to hell and spilled blood – _and worse_ – and Michael wants me for a pissing contest with Lucifer that'll just happen to wipe out a good chunk of the world's population. Oh _yeah_, I sound like a real _boon_ for mankind."

Castiel steps closer, and Dean turns to look at him. His face is thin and haunted.

"You resisted for thirty years, Dean. You accomplished something that not even a quarter of humans could have withstood for more than a day. You're wrong to say these things."

"Some righteous man I was," Dean sneers. "It should have been Dad that you saved, back then. He held out for a hundred."

"We're not talking about your father. We're talking about you. And besides, he was never blameless." Castiel takes another step forward, wanting to reach out, to reassure, to _touch_, but keeping himself in check. "If you're really so convinced of your worthlessness, then why are you even still here? Do you only exist for Sam, then?"

"Of course! He's the reason I went to the pit, isn't he? And Dad... Dad said..." Dean shakes his head then, moistening his lips. "No, it doesn't matter what Dad said – _I_ want to protect him. I don't want him to ever be like... like me."

"Is it not possible for you to exist for yourself?" _Or for me?_ Castiel almost adds, but he refrains. One thing at a time.

"How could I ever exist for myself, Cas? I can't see even one goddamn reason that I should."

"I can think of many reasons." Now Castiel is just within an arm's length of Dean. The temptation to crush him to his chest is powerful. "Many, many reasons. I..."

He notices Dean looking wretchedly past him before he hears a shrill female scream, ringing out as clearly as a deformed bell. He turns slowly, knowing what he's about to see, but still not willing that he should look at it.

Behind him, a woman lies on the torture rack. He knows instinctively, without having to articulate it, that this was one of Dean's victims in hell. She is naked, bleeding, and starved, her body stretched and contorted to unimaginably horrifying degrees, and her breasts and genitals mutilated into weeping, suppurated tissue. Tears roll down the sides of her gaunt face as she struggles against the restraints, screams brokenly for mercy: a mercy that will never come.

"Please – make it stop – make it stop – _just please God make it stop_ – " After another moment's vain struggle, her body finally gives a great shudder and grows still, eyes and mouth open in an eternal, silent scream.

Castiel clasps his hands and utters a low prayer: both for her and all the other souls still trapped in the pit. _I could only save one of you._

"I'm sorry," Dean is sobbing behind him, falling to his knees. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I didn't even know your name..."

"Dean..." Castiel finally reaches for him, but stops when Dean flinches away from him, like he might give the angel a fatal disease.

"That woman," he rasps. "That woman... I cut her open – raped her – killed her – over and over and over again – "

"If it hadn't been you, Alastair would have found someone else to do it," Castiel says firmly. "That is what hell is – _everyone_ suffers, no matter what. And why do you only focus on what you did? Alastair must have done at _least_ as much to you – and done it every single day for thirty years."

Dean's denial of Castiel's words is curiously absent, as if he's pretended not to have heard. "Some of the women were pregnant when they went to hell," he continues, his eyes wide and screaming in his head. "I cut the babies out of their stomachs and murdered them, right in front of their mothers. I was gone, so far gone..."

"You of all people should know that infants do not go to the pit. You were contributing to an illusion. You must have known that on some level – "

_"Stop justifying it, Cas! You're not helping!"_

Castiel stiffens, and Dean hangs his head in his hands, on the verge of erupting into bitter wails – the one thing he's managed to avoid ever since escaping the abyss. Drawing steady, measured breaths, he manages to limit his tears to sobs that are at once broken and restrained, while Castiel stands and broods and prays for the wisdom to make Dean understand.

* * *

"Dean," Castiel finally says. "There's no need to show me any of these things. The moment I touched your soul and brought you out of that place, I could see every single thing you had ever done there."

Dean looks at him, the anguish on his face making the slow transition to shock. Apparently too much undone by this revelation, he rises to his feet and breaks for the room's only exit; but Castiel reappears in front of him, blocking his escape.

"I didn't say that so you could run away. I said it so I could make you understand. _Understand_, then, this – "

And he grips Dean, and shows him the moment when he raised him from perdition.

_An entire garrison of angels have lent him their strength for this mission. As a seraph, Castiel is a middle-ranking soldier, but the protective flames that cover every inch of his marbled skin are not enough to prepare him for the trip to hell. And so, they each endow him with a piece of their Grace; and he breaks through the barrier of Heaven, to reach the one place where God is not._

_Hell is airless, claustrophobic – black, and yet every moment blazing with a fire that corrupts utterly. Castiel threads his serpentine body through a small galaxy of souls that shriek and cower away at his polarizing presence, his thousands of eyes opening and closing, opening and closing, steady, searching._

_Still, it proves a struggle: all six of his black wings fully extend in that place which seems so tiny that it must not be able to house even the head of a pin, holy fire curbing and purifying the unholy flames surrounding him, a cacophony of screaming voices attempting to take up permanent residence in his soul, until finally he sees the man he was sent to save – Dean Winchester, the Righteous Man – begging someone who is not there to put him back on the rack._

_In the awful clarity of the light imparted by the seraph's body, he looks up, sees Castiel; and the expression on his face (quite unreadable by human standards) nevertheless conveys to Castiel a paroxysm of joy and terror – and then, before the sight can prove to be too much and destroy Dean Winchester's soul, Castiel reaches out with claws that are easily over thrice his size, cradles him in one fist to protect him from the fire, and raises him in the air to meet him.  
_  
_At the moment that he cleaves Dean's soul to his body, he is struck by a dizzying sense of intimacy. Dean is wrought with misery, sadness, pain and so, so much guilt (he is hoping that this creature has come to punish him, to crush him into paste for every unspeakable thing he has done here); and all of it is telegraphed to him as clearly as if they were Castiel's own thoughts. Momentarily forgetting his station as a higher being, he clutches the suffering human closer and speaks words of comfort in his native Enochian._

_**Fear not, Dean Winchester. I am not here to destroy, but to save.**_

_Two wings cover Dean's face; two wings, his feet; and with the remaining two, they leave that place.  
_

* * *

"You remember now, don't you? I _saw_ those things, and I did not judge you. As I do not judge you now."

Dean looks as if he will die from shame, as if being reminded that Castiel pitied rather than hated him was somehow so much worse. He speaks in plaintive, incredulous tones.

"But, Cas... it was too late anyway. I'd already jump-started the Apocalypse by the time you grabbed me. You _knew_ that. So why didn't you just put me back and get the hell out of Dodge?"

Castiel is silent for a moment. Then: "Because your sorrow was immense – and unaccounted for. You didn't belong in that place. I saved you so that one day you would realize that."

Dean's sobs bubble out of him in full force for an instant, making his chest heave violently, and with a great effort he keeps them down, like a bitter medicine. "Well then you're fucking dumb, Cas. Because – " But the words die on his lips when Castiel steps forward and begins to wipe the tears away from his face.

"I am not stupid," he says, sternly. "Once, I commanded you to treat me with respect. Now I only ask that you will give me the courtesy of respecting my opinion of you." His thumb travels over the stubbled territory of Dean's face, collecting every drop of anguished moisture tipping from his eyelashes. Dean makes a feeble attempt to retreat from the angel's steely gaze, but Castiel's eyes hold him as firmly as his claws once held him in hell. After a moment they soften, but Dean is no more inclined to look away.

"You were the first human to ever confound me like that, you know," he adds quietly. "And, I suppose, to give me the feelings that I struggle with now."

"I... I don't understand."

"Maybe not. But someday you will."

And he intends to leave it at that – _because what other way could it ever be?_ – but Dean's eyes are so wide and uncomprehending, his lips trembling in so innocent a manner, that Castiel can't draw his hand away. Instead, he lets it linger on his cheek, stroking the soft dimpled flesh around his lips with a thumb... and then he draws Dean's face closer to him, covers his mouth in a slow, hesitant kiss.

Dean doesn't return the kiss, but neither does he reject it. His eyes close and his face slowly relaxes, as Castiel eases his mouth open, softly breathes life into it – and perhaps it was like this when God first breathed _pneuma_ into the dust that became Adam, Dean's primordial forebear – and his other hand moves to touch the indelible mark on his shoulder. Then he stops, draws back to look at Dean.

"Forgive me," he starts, "I did not..." But now Dean is just looking at him, green eyes strangely subdued and peaceful, silently wanting more but not asking, and Castiel realizes that he wants to give it to him. So he hooks his fingers behind Dean's neck and pushes his face back into his, gently, letting his mouth taste the sweat on his skin, brush the stubble on his chin (and how absurd that this should feel so real when both of them are dreaming). When he pushes his lips into Dean's again, Dean pushes back.

After a moment Dean suddenly seems to remember himself, and he turns away.

"No," he says. "The woman..."

"Someday you will see her again and beg her for forgiveness, and she will grant it," Castiel replies. "Someday, all things will be reconciled. I believe that, as surely as I believe that God is still with us."

"But _why_?"

"It's called faith for a reason, Dean. I don't need to know the future to have it."

He kisses Dean again, who moans and takes a few steps backward. They are no longer in the dreary room but in Dean's bedroom in Kansas, where posters of rock bands adorn the walls and a vintage radio sits on the nightstand next to a pile of comic books. Castiel sits him down heavily on the bed and begins to strip off his shirt and jacket. His head is pounding and something like electricity is sparking through his groin. Casual sex had never appealed to him, but the idea of taking Dean Winchester here and now is akin to that of tasting the sweetest wine. The fact that he knows exactly what he wants to do with him only seems to speak further to the complete _meantness_ of the act. Dean, for his part, lies back on the bed and closes his eyes, allowing Castiel's fingers to explore his bared chest, his broad shoulders, the firm planes of his stomach, before gliding around his hips, pressing and kneading into the small of his back.

"Is this good?" Castiel asks quietly. Dean nods.

"I will never do anything that you don't want," Castiel says, and he experimentally bites down on Dean's left nipple, applying soft pressure, marveling at how Dean's body – the sleek skin and muscle and bone – can be so firm, and yet pleasingly soft. He plays with the left nipple to his satisfaction, then moves to Dean's right. Vaguely, he becomes aware of Dean's chest slightly heaving, and the fact that Dean is crying again. After a minute of careful kissing and sucking, he rises up on his elbows and leans over the hunter's body, gazing into his eyes, which are gauzy with tears.

"I won't tell you not to cry," he says, and lowers his face to Dean's own, so that their noses are touching. He takes a sort of surprised delight in the soft, bumpy feeling, in Dean's breath hushing in and out of his nostrils, beating a warm rhythm against his lips. "If you want to, if you need to... you should cry."

"Cas..." But Dean can't manage anything beyond that – to do so would be to open the floodgates of emotion, to do just such a thing as Castiel is suggesting, something he has never done even when he is completely alone. The tears continue to silently stream from his eyes as he maintains his stubborn vigil against exhibiting any kind of emotion John Winchester might have disapproved of. With unfailing patience, Castiel returns to his silent worship of Dean's body. He removes Dean's socks and shoes, begins rubbing the sensitive webbed spaces between his toes. Dean shudders in response, appreciative in spite of his reticence, and this encourages Castiel to take each of his toes in his mouth. The flavor is unusual, intense, and he decides that he likes it. He covers every last inch of Dean's feet with gentle nips and kisses, lapping up the seemingly inexhaustible flavor, before shucking Dean's pants off of his hips.

Finally Dean lies there before him, completely unclothed, as glorious as one of the creatures that first walked through the Garden of Eden, when God's creation was still pronounced good. Dean still isn't looking at him, which Castiel thinks is rather a shame, because Dean certainly has a lot to be confident about. Using nothing more than the force of his will, Castiel's own clothes disappear. The lights dim and then Castiel is lying on top of him in the darkness, his bearing almost reverent as he slowly closes the warm space between their bodies, skin meeting on skin.

For several minutes they don't do anything but lie there in the comforting tent of darkness, with Castiel content to inhale the sweet scent of Dean's hair. And while Dean is exceedingly sensitive to each of Castiel's gentle touches, he remains distant and closed off – determined to white-knuckle himself into oblivion, well out of reach of the self-love that Castiel desires for him.

"Dean," he says. Dean turns to the sound of his voice, and Castiel cups his head and rests it against his breastbone. "I showed you that moment when I pulled you from hell. Do you remember what happened after that? As I was taking you back to earth?"

Dean's voice is a croak.

"I... Cas, I don't know. I didn't even remember you nabbing me until you showed me just now."

"I will help you, then. I won't show you anything, though. I'll just tell you." His fingertips trace slow, uncomplicated patterns on the muscled canvas between Dean's shoulder blades. "We were leaving the pit, and you started crying – crying like a child, actually, the way you won't let yourself cry now. It was so intense that I actually panicked. I thought I had done something wrong, and now you were dying. But we still had that soul-connection, and I didn't _sense_ anything that would truly arouse my concern. But there was a new emotion there, above the regret and self-hatred: one that I couldn't make sense of."

Dean listens in silence, but the silence is tense and uncomfortable, as if he feels he might already know the conclusion to this story and doesn't want to hear it.

"I kept trying to talk to you, calm you down, but I didn't realize that you couldn't understand Enochian. You just kept crying and clutching my claw. It's one of those things that's funny in hindsight, I suppose, but at the time, I really was afraid. And so..."

"...you sang to me," Dean finishes, his voice soft and unbelieving.

Castiel's fingers stop. "You do remember."

Dean nods, shakily. "Yeah... you were singing, but at the same time it wasn't like singing at all. It was like this humming that filled me up – right down to the core – and all of my body parts were _vibrating_, or something, but I couldn't actually make anything out."

"An ancient Enochian lullaby. It was my favorite as a young seraph, and I was desperate."

"Yeah. It had the feel of a lullaby. Because even though there was no melody, I still got this really warm feeling inside, like when my mom used to sing me to sleep. You were even rocking your claws back and forth, like some kind of cradle. It was... soothing. Especially since I hadn't been crying because I was upset. I was crying because I was _relieved_. In the end, I was just so goddamn relieved to be leaving that place. And..." His lips are trembling now, his voice lowered to a whisper, thick with unshed tears. "I remember that I kept saying _I love you_, over and over again. After a while I curled up and fell asleep."

Castiel meditates on this in silence.

"Did you know that's what I was saying?"

"No. I had no idea."

"I remember it all now, Cas. I remember – _everything_." Dean's voice breaks off into a choked gasp on the final syllable; and there, in the solace of a dream and the arms of an angel that had borne him up out of torments unending, he gives full, keening vent to every sorrow, every agony, and every regret.

That night, Castiel takes Dean. Again and again he takes him, making his body sing to higher and higher crescendos of pleasure, until Dean has no more tears to cry.

* * *

It's morning when Castiel opens his eyes. Dean is gone.

He blinks owlishly against the too-bright sunlight drifting in through the motel curtains. It isn't like Dean to be up before him. But then it isn't like Castiel to be sleeping, either. He pulls himself into a sitting position on the floor, scanning for any signs that Dean and Sam suddenly left to deal with a monster. There aren't any – one of Dean's weapons is still on the television, along with his jacket, and Sam's laptop sits on the table.

Behind him, the door opens. He quickly rises to his feet.

"Oh. Good morning, Cas," Sam says, shutting the door behind him. At Castiel's confused gaze he says, "Dean and I just ran down to the IHOP for some breakfast. He wanted me to bring you back this nasty triple chocolate-chip buttermilk pancake thing." He wrinkles his nose, setting a greasy bag down next to his laptop.

"Thank you, Sam," Castiel says, knowing full well (as both Winchesters already do) that he isn't going to eat it. "Where is Dean?"

"He went to get a bunch of beer and junk food. There's a World Series game on tonight – Apocalypse or no Apocalypse – and if we have time, he wants us all to sit around and watch it." He shakes his head, apparently confounded, but not unhappily so. "It's kind of out of nowhere, but refreshing. He hasn't really cared about stuff like that for a long time. Not since... anyway." He coughs, trying for a more casual tone. "We're gonna go do some more hunting in an hour or so. Nothing weird was in the papers at breakfast, so we're just going to scout around and see what we can see. Hopefully we'll find and gank that vampire before he can hurt anyone else. You wanna tag along?"

"I might."

"Cool." And Castiel doesn't know if it's because his Grace is steadily weakening, or if Sam really _is_ just that spontaneous (or conversely, good at concealing his intent), but he's completely unprepared for Sam's next question.

"Listen, Dean says it's none of our business... but why were you sleeping on the floor next to his bed when I got up? In fact, why were you sleeping at _all_?"

For several moments Castiel doesn't know how to answer that, and he just stares. Sam stares back at him: at first with puzzlement, and then with wide-eyed horror, as suspicion slowly graduates to conviction.

"Oh. Oh, my God. Were you two doing something last night? While I was still in the _room_?"

"No," Castiel says immediately, which he realizes is exactly the wrong thing to say. Not even a day ago he would have been completely oblivious to Sam's suggestion. "Er, I mean. Could you elaborate, Sam?"

"Oh, come on! You can't have spent all that time around Barney Stinson and _not_ know what I'm talking about!" Sam's outrage is both completely justified and completely comical. When Castiel starts to protest that he doesn't understand the reference, Sam continues: "It's not that I'm judging, it's just – _damn_! You and my brother – and I was right _there_, man! Sleeping!"

"I wouldn't do such a thing. My vessel is a believer and a married man. I would never betray his trust like that." And this at least is true.

"Okay," Sam says, seeming to calm down a bit, "but it still doesn't answer my question."

Castiel hesitates. "Your brother's been having nightmares for a while now. I've been using my Grace to help him sleep. It just went on a bit too long last night." He hopes Dean won't be angry with him later.

Sam's face falls. "Oh, damn it. He was supposed to tell me if he got to feeling like this... that's Dean Winchester for you – world's most enthusiastic counseling patient. I'll take it out of his ass later since he's been in such a good mood all morning, but it still worries me."

"So Dean _is_ happy then?"

"Yeah. Like I said before, kind of unexpected. He's more the way he used to be, before – before hell." He pauses. "I'm not complaining."

Castiel blinks, and Sam smiles at him.

"Thanks for taking care of him, Cas. You're a great friend. But next time you should really just tell me right away. It won't help him to keep secrets like this. And, uh – sorry for accusing you, too," he adds, somewhat sheepishly.

"It's all right," Castiel says, but before he can truly absorb everything Sam's said to him Dean is kicking his way through the door, bearing two full armloads of soda, chips, and beer (and one massive pie).

"The eagle has landed," Dean hoots, dropping the stuff into empty chairs, his face flushed with the kind of contented well-being Sam's been talking about. As if nothing's changed between them, he looks at Castiel and points to the dripping IHOP bag. "Mornin', Cas. You gonna eat that?"

"No."

"Don't mind if I do, then," Dean says, and without any kind of prelude he unwraps the bag and begins to stab at the syrupy entrée with a fork. "Gotta get my post-breakfast snack on," he says through a mouthful of pancake.

"Gross, Dean," Sam says, but his brother just chuckles and shovels pancake into his mouth even faster. "Whatever. I'm gonna go take a shower. Be ready to go when I'm out."

"Sure thing, Sammy."

Sam pads into the bathroom and closes the door. Dean continues to eat, looking unconcerned, but once the shower water starts running he immediately drops his fork and looks at the angel with a confounded, almost desperate expression.

"Cas, I had a dream last night." He swallows hard. "Was it only a – "

"It was a dream that you and I both fully participated in," Castiel tells him, and Dean's face untightens by slow degrees.

"So it was real. Kind of."

"Yes," Castiel affirms. "I told Sam you were having nightmares," he adds. "I'm sorry."

Dean frowns. "Why'd you go and do something like that?"

"He was convinced we were engaged in sexual congress while he was sleeping." He isn't at all surprised when Dean's expression changes and he bursts into meaty guffaws.

"Oh my _God_, that's fucking funny," the hunter says, his hands falling to grasp his knees as he leans forward like a carelessly erected tower of building blocks. "The idea of us getting it on while poor Sammy is drooling away one bed over – " Then he straightens up, the frown returning.

"Well, speaking of that." He looks uncomfortable now. "We sort of _did_ do that. You and I had sex, Cas. That's pretty fucking mind-blowing." The disturbed expression on his face lends strength to this last sentence. "We had a _lot_ of sex." He's unable to suppress a smile as he remembers, though. "A lot of _good_ sex."

Castiel looks at him in silence: one of his ways of indicating assent.

"Does that make us a couple now? Like that Nic Cage movie? Or Twilight? Am I Bella Swan?"

"Do you want us to be a couple?"

"I don't know." Dean looks away, his face shadowed and troubled.

"There's nothing we could do outside of your dreams, anyway. Jimmy Novak – "

"Oh, yeah. Good ol' Jimmy." Dean says this without a trace of irony. He also seems to be saying this with relief, and Castiel tries not to let the disappointment show on his face. A long silence stretches out between them.

At last Castiel says miserably, "Maybe I should just take away your memory."

Dean looks at him with an expression of open horror. "What? _No_! Cas, what you did for me – that whole _get Dean to break down and confess his feelings_ Breakfast Club bit – taking away my memory would just be undoing all that. I can't ask that of you. For the first day in two years now I haven't been feeling like a hooker on the run from his pimp."

"You mean you're happy?"

"I... yeah, I'm happy." Dean seems astounded to actually admit as much. "I mean, it's not a complete system wipe back to Dean 1.0, but – I _am_ happy. Just didn't think it would take getting touched by an angel to get there, that's all."

"Then that's all I want, Dean. I want you to be happy."

"And I don't want you to be _un_happy, Cas."

Castiel shrugs. "I lived for thousands of years without knowing you. I'll survive," he says, but even he can tell that his voice sounds empty and fake.

"At least stay with us." Dean sounds desperate. "Okay? I don't know how I feel, but I don't want you to leave either."

"I won't leave you," Castiel promises him. "The thought never crossed my mind. And we still have the Apocalypse to deal with, after all." Then, with a sort of delayed ambivalence in his features, he asks: "Dean, do you love me?"

At first Dean starts at the question, and he lowers his gaze, his jaw set tight and stiff as he considers. Before Castiel can begin to feel dismayed, however, he relaxes, his face breaking into an open smile.

"Yeah. Yeah, I guess I do. I'm just a stubborn, angelphobic dick, I guess."

Castiel draws closer to him and holds out his hand. His palm brackets Dean's cheek and he smiles at him gently, but doesn't do anything more. "You're not a dick, Dean."

The feeling of Castiel's hand cupping Dean's cheek intimately recalls in the hunter feelings of when he was rescued from the pit, when that human hand was in fact an enormous cluster of interlocking claws bearing him towards safety. He feels a mixture of terrible arousal and a child's need to be held by its mother.

Castiel at once understands his thoughts. He sits down on the bed, and Dean angles his body out on the mattress and lays his head down in his lap. They remain like that for several minutes without speaking, Castiel's fingers threading through his hair, until the sound of running shower water ceases and Sam comes out of the bathroom, fully dressed and toweling out his hair.

"Awesome," Sam says, regarding the two of them as they stand apart facing him. "You coming with, Cas?"

"Yes," Castiel says. "I imagine you'll be needing my help."

"Hopefully we can put this case to bed before the game starts. Then we can all celebrate, the old-fashioned American way: with lots of beer and crap food." Even Sam is willing to suspend his health-nut status for the sake of a World Series game.

"We'll get you shitfaced yet, Cas," Dean says with a grin, and Sam rolls his eyes before gathering his things and heading out the door.

"Hold up a sec," he adds as Castiel begins to follow Sam. The angel pauses by the open door and looks at him.

"Listen, I wouldn't close the book on us yet. Maybe... maybe someday things can work out for us."

Castiel is mournful, doubting. "What makes you believe that?"

"Hey, I don't gotta know the future to have faith, right? If you're willing to see where this fucked-up yellow brick road takes us, then so am I."

Castiel looks at him, surprised, before his face glows with genuine happiness. "And then maybe someday, I will teach you how to sing that lullaby."

"I'd like that, Cas. I'd really like that." Dean grabs up his jacket and gun, claps a hand on his guardian angel's shoulder, and walks him out of the room. "Now let's go before Sam gets the idea that we hung back to suck face or something."

* * *

_The End_

A/N: Yes, I suck at endings. And beginnings. And titles, apparently. (I chose _Gratia Plena_ because I think grace and forgiveness are very strong descriptors for Cas and Dean's relationship – at least in the context of this story – and because Latin is cool.)


End file.
